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How to Lead Your Team When the House Is on Fire
Wartime can be extremely demanding for Engineering Managers. But by ruthlessly focusing on delivery, building a resilient team, investing in individuals, and maintaining their own strength, an EM can lead their people to not just survive but thrive under pressure.
One effective technique is to establish a rotating "firefighter" role to singlehandedly deal with any incoming requests, represent the team in meetings, and handle the necessary amount of bureaucracy, allowing the rest to stay heads-down on the critical priorities. You have more chance to succeed if your tech debt strategy is backward-looking, refactoring parts of the code that are causing concrete pain for developers today – as opposed to forward-looking, dreaming up grandiose plans for new frameworks that will be ready for any unknown challenge of the future. Naturally, the stress of painful decisions can erode trust in leadership and other departments, but reinforcing a negative mindset will hurt you more than the temporary warm camaraderie you'll enjoy by joining the chorus of cynics.
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